It’s time for Kpopalypse roundup! Let’s take a look at some new releases!
NMIXX – Dash
Okay, this is the first NMIXX feature track with a compositional concept that actually really works. The “change-up” might be telegraphed with the lyrics in typical cringe style but it’s actually not a nauseatingly irrelevant change because the tonality shift works in context this time (a major scale climatic portion of a blues scale song makes compositional sense) and the tempo never gets completely dumped either. It does fit together reasonably well, so cheers.
NMIXX – Run For Roses
A similar idea doesn’t work quite so well here. A bland minor pentatonic acoustic guitar riff for the verse, and a bland major pentatonic violin riff for the pre-chorus, with no harmony worth a damn in either. By the time you get to the actually quite good chorus, you’ve probably stopped caring.
Aespa – Regret of the Times
A Seo Taiji song which wasn’t really all that great to begin with gets a reworking by aespa here and of course they remove most of the heaviness and most of the fast pace, the only two things the song originally had going for it.
Choi Yena – Good Morning
How is this faster and gutsier than aespa covering Seo Taiji? I mean, what’s their excuse? Sad times.
tripleS Aria – Door
Notwithstanding a few unusual sounds that we don’t normally hear in a ballad context, this is really just like anything else that came out in coffee shop/OST land over the past decade.
SF9 – BIBORA
Boy groups are off to a reasonable start this year. This song has tons of nice harmony, some appealing old-school vibes and it doesn’t do anything stupid to kill the flow, nice.
ATEEZ Yeosang, San, Wooyoung – It’s You
Not every boy group though. Here we have just the usual slow Autotuned nonsense we’ve had an entire decade to get sick of.
LIMELIGHT – TA-DA!
An obvious attempt at Fifty Fifty’s “Cupid” but the songwriting isn’t quite there and the weirdly loud drums detract a bit from the intended relaxed cruisy feel. Still, I’m glad this exists because a trend of mid-paced melodic songs that don’t do bullshit is actually what k-pop needs right now, we just have to wait for someone to do it a little bit better than this.
LIMELIGHT Miu – Twenty Twenty
This solo song is slightly more successful than the group effort because the instrument choices aren’t quite so jarring for what it’s trying to do.
MINIMANI M – Heartbreak
A pretty generic semi-trot effort, but it’s not terrible. The worst thing about it isn’t the music, but the visual design elements which are bafflingly awful, the incorrect microphone use is only one of about 25 ways they’ve messed this up visually.
TRENDZ – Go Up
Another song that actually keeps the pace up. Even though we haven’t had a very impressive last six months of k-pop, songwriters have been gradually discovering how to write a song again without shit trends in it and the results have been okay on average.
NCT U – Do It (Let’s Play)
We’re the ones getting played by this stupid song. Wasn’t sure whether to include it here or not as it’s labelled OST but I think the OST only exists in SM’s imagination from what I can tell? I really don’t know but I’ve written this many words already so fuck it, now you have to put up with it too.
B1A4 – Rewind
Not much of a song, really. Nice video though, I’m all for more kendo concepts in k-pop even thought it’s a Japanese martial art apparently, like whatever. There’s no nationalism here folks, Dodko island belongs to the seagulls.
OnlyOneOf – Dopamine
Definitely missing the BGP element, but there’s still enough guys with exposed chests and sultry straight-to-camera glares here for anyone interested to get their fap on. Also the long-haired guy is taking me back to the days of Moonbok (remember him? No? Oh well…) and peak period SHINee. I used to have waist-length hair before I had no hair, and as a guy I can tell you it definitely does affect how people treat you, so I’m in favour of long hair male representation in my k-pops.
8TURN – RU-PUM PUM
They took their lesson on “rum pums” from CL’s “Lifted” when f(x)’s “Rum Pum Pum Pum” was right there. Oops.
ALL(H)OURS – GOTCHA
Who the fuck are these nugus with a shitload of views? I remember the days when even Girls’ Generation songs wouldn’t get 20 million views on debut, nowadays these kids get their gold YouTube button in the post before they’ve finished getting their eyeliner done for their debut stage. The song’s not bad I guess but mainly I’m just happy that they found the copter those two American Navy SEALs crashed the other day.
WAKER – Atlantis
I’m not sure what they’ve done to their faces but the purple haired guy from N-Tic has definitely got some competition in this group. Anyway, it’s a pretty good song for such a bunch of wakers.
BXB – Airplane
Not sure about these travel tips, my own site has far better ones.
JD1 – Who Am I (trot singer Jeong Dongwon brands himself to kpop performer)
I’m told by my song submitter that this is trot songer Jeong Dongwon with a more modernised k-pop makeover, but the cheap sci-fi setting is giving me strong Chad Future vibes from a decade ago, so not that much more modern when you think about it. The sad part is I actually think Chad’s version of this nonsense concept is more fun, at least he would wear spikes and say cheesy things like “we’re gonna shake the world” or whatever. JD1 is going to have to try harder.
Ryu Sujeong feat. XYLØ – Fallen Angel
The pattern of every ex-Lovelyz member besides Mijoo having boring slow songs continues.
Ted Park, Parlay Pass feat. Jay Park – Dance Like Jay Park Remix
This probably would have been alright without the Autotune actually, or at least listenable. As it is, you need to be drunk to appreciate it. Speaking of which, Jay where’s my soju I’m still waiting.
Kino – Fashion Style
Okay Kino who is ex-Pentagon has a song out and you don’t care about it because it’s trend-riding garbage and you’re a smart person who doesn’t need your intelligence insulted like that, so let’s have this week’s non-Korean non-pop Asian music feature! This week it’s hardcore group SPEED (not to be confused with the legendary Heelys-wearing, Davichi-guest-vocals-having k-pop group), and while they’re from Australia they’re almost all Asian so they get in. The macho posing of course seems a bit silly at first, but it seems significantly less silly in the context of the lyrics here that specifically address anti-Asian violence, plus stereotypes about Asians in general as meek and polite. Their ten minute documentary is worth a look as it puts a lot of what you see in a broader context, but probably the most impressive thing of all about this band besides the kickass music is that they’re from Sydney… who knew that town still had a band scene left?
Kyuhyun – The Story Behind
Oh and I couldn’t decide whether to put “Not That Nice” or “We See U” in this roundup, because while I think the former has a better concept and gives you a better overview of the band’s style, I like the latter song more. So they can both get in. What a fucking punch in the face this track is. It’s exactly the right length for a song like this because any more and you’d probably need a hospital visit.
Niel – Parting Path
Back to the k-pop I suppose, ho-hum. Neil was in Teen Top and I’m pretty sure this song only exists because he wanted to work with whoever that actress is in the video, gosh she looks pretty. If these two get married later, I called it.
Narin – Nanana
You can add “ultra-bright New York subway system” to the nugu location list. Who’s keeping track of all these locations? If someone sends me a comprehensive enough list I’ll make a post about it.
Amber – Dusk Til Dawn
Nothing really happening here except Amber dancing and hey this thing only has about 7k views at the time of writing, Amber might technically qualify for Nugu Alert soon.
The Deep – Bow Wow
Nothing really happens in this song. I could put a third SPEED track here but I don’t want to overwhelm you with actual good music or you might stop reading about k-pop completely and never come back here again.
Son Tae Jin, Shin Seong, Enoch – Here, I stand for you
Look at these boring cunts.
Balming Tiger – Buriburi / Pigeon and Plastic
I’ll give Balming Tiger credit – even though I rarely like the result, whatever they’ve got that’s new is always something different to the last thing they did. I hope they keep going because they’re bound to have something truly great one day just on the basis of probability alone.
Junggigo feat. Hoody – IWST (I Wanna Say That)
They were supposed to be swans on the lake, not fucking people in lame boats, my day is ruined before this shit song even started.
Futuristic Swaver – Amaenbo
Futuristic Swaver is one of those really weird rap people who would actually be interesting if he turned the fucking Autotune off, but he never does, so he’s not.
Fleeky Bang – Yeah
I mean he could be as good as Fleeky Bang here, as you can hear… oh wait, never mind.
RANDOM BONUS VIDEOS OF THE WEEK
Wordupmoonstar – feminist anthems of k-pop
They’re drawing a long bow with one or two of these (I stan Loona like any rational person but Loona’s “So What” is about as feminist as Anti Nowhere League’s “So What“), but they’re still about 99% correct and girl groups are better than boy groups even without feminist lyrics so I’ll just nod and say “yes ma’am”.
It’s interesting how some of the very fictional situations in my books correlate so closely to a lot of these equally fictional situations in the videos that came out just after my first two books were published, especially the Kiss Of Life videos (which are great, by the way). This must definitely just be coincidence, of course. I mean I certainly don’t know what I’m talking about and have never spoken to anybody with insider knowledge about any of this, because that would just be weird, right?
Teamfight Tactics ft. Apoki – The Stage Is Yours
This isn’t eligible for roundup consideration because it was released in 1863 but I thought I’d throw it in here to please all the “Yordle puss smashers” (yes, they exist), which I guess is the demographic Apoki’s creators are aiming for with all those huge fluttering eyelids and sultry stares in skin-tight lycra I guess. Anyway there was no great loss in missing this song from roundups last year because the song sucks, and not only that but Teamfight Tactics sucks even more and may be the worst game in the universe so there’s two reasons to ignore this.
CO-ED SCHOOL – Bbiribbom Bbaeribom
Speaking of (the Korean) SPEED, they were originally the male component of Co-ed School, with the female part eventually morphing into 5Dolls/F-ve Dolls. This song actually isn’t horrible, with a catchy chorus making up for some horrible Autotune overuse (a weird trend in idol girl pop of the day, long before 2NE1 saturated the sound so much that everyone just gave up). The best thing about it however is of course the magical conjuring of T-ara’s Eunjung just by putting a poster on the wall, something that I’m sure everyone wishes they could do with their bias.
That’s all for this week! Kpopalypse roundup returns next week!
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